A Door in Time
by Lancelotlaureate
Summary: Whilst looking at the war memorials in France in 2017, a strange phenomena occurs and Ian is transported back in time a hundred years.


**(Uploaded this story a few years back but re-uploading after a re-working of the entire story.)**

The story begins in 1917 against the sounds of guns and cries, with soldiers battered by the bitter winter chill of France- and extraordinarily the inclusion of a time traveller. Who'd believe that a blue police telephone box could travel in time and space, cross from one dimension into another and transport people to times gone by and days not yet lived?

As those weary soldiers stared to the sky at night from within a trench that held them prisoner, they would never imagine that being among the stars were possible for some.

Ian Chesterton was one such traveller and was in that trench in 1917, but not as himself, not as a real war hero, but an imposter instead. He was believed to be someone else, a younger man- an English poet by the name of Wilfred Owen.

…

When Barbara, Susan, the Doctor and Ian arrived and stepped outside the TARDIS, there was a harsh sting of cold in the air and the grass was damp beneath their feet. Susan shut the ship's doors behind her as they ventured along the path ahead of the TARDIS. Barbara was trembling with the cold and whilst Ian wrapped his arms around her to keep her warm, the Doctor was bent over examining something, his body arched over, all tight and battered by the cold. Susan picked up a newspaper that had been discarded on the ground, but the Doctor snatched it from her and with no one else bothering to question his impatience he examined the paper closely, his eyes darting back and forth across the front page. He sighed and then handed Ian the paper.

"Dear boy, read the date," he said.

Ian's eyes scanned the paper and his heart sank for a moment. "2017?" He looked at Barbara and saw that her saddened expression was the same as his as she read the paper over his shoulder.

Ian with regret noted to the Doctor that once again they'd arrived in the wrong time to which the Doctor was not quick to respond to. To say the teachers were disappointed was an understatement. Every time they reached Earth, every time they stepped out onto new soil hoping that it may be home at last, it was always the wrong time.

"Only by fifty four years my boy," remarked the Doctor clutching his lapels. "I am getting closer. You must admit that at least."

"And doing a fine job, Grandfather," Susan said cheerfully as she huddled up next to him and placed his scarf around his shoulders. "Oh Grandfather, you'll catch your death, you must keep warm."

"Thank you my dear," he chuckled. "Yes, thank you, I'll be fine."

Trying to change the subject, Ian caught Barbara's glance and laughed. "Maybe we should look ourselves up in this time, we'd only be in our eighties."

"Oh, only in our eighties?" Barbara replied. "I'd rather not run into myself if it's all the same. Running into other versions of us, well it gives me the creeps, not to mention the fright of seeing how much I'll have aged."

The old man scoffed and threw his cape over his shoulder in a gesture of authority, perhaps to stop his companions from their foolish discussions about future events which they not supposed to be aware of or perhaps just because he grew impatient of remaining still in one place for too long. Susan followed him, running after his sudden brisk pace as they cleared a stretch of trees and became suddenly aware of their surroundings. There were thousands of white gravestones lined in perfect symmetry, stretching back beyond their vision, and the graves were so uniformed that the image was haunting and solemn. The travellers knew instantly that it was one of the war memorials in France.

Ian paused, frowned, thinking of his father, a mere young man of eighteen when he had entered the Great War in 1918, only seeing action in the last months. His father had never told stories about the war, he had been too afraid to ever recall those days gone by, and Ian had never been able to broach the subject. Ian could see that Barbara, Susan, and the Doctor had the same saddened expression, the same deep thoughts racing through their busy minds, and that it was a poignant moment for all. They stood in silence for a moment, taking in where they were and what the men that lay before them had fought for.

The silence was eerie and the wind sounded like a whispering of voices of all the soldiers who lay dead below the ground beneath.

The Doctor paced the graves back and forth, eyeing his companions from time to time, deep in thought with an expression of worry. But every time he went to open his mouth, he stopped himself and carried on reading the inscriptions. Susan was examining the graves closely, they weren't in much detail but her fascination didn't falter as her eyes fell upon each one at a time.

The Doctor looked at Ian, this time with a confused expression as he saw his younger friend stop still. Ian's face suddenly lost colour as he experienced a sudden loss of feeling in some of his body- his heart beginning to race. Ian wanted to call out to the Doctor and question what was happening but as he tried to speak, he felt unsteady and light-headed, like he was about to faint and fall to the ground. His eyes began to blur and his hearing faltered until he could only make out the distant voice of Barbara ringing in his mind like an echo. Blueness swirled around him like a vortex, like a whirlwind and he imagined he was at sea, on a ship, as a storm formed and lashed and eventually wrapped around him, engulfing him until he could no longer do anything. He couldn't move.

"Ian, what's wrong? Ian! Ian!" Barbara shouted.

He wanted to reply, let her know his pains but he couldn't speak. The words seemed unable to escape his lips and he could see Barbara fading before his eyes. She was a blur but he could make out that she looked scared and uncertain. The fear of her expression distorted as her face darted back and forth across his vision.

...

When Ian finally opened his eyes he was lying in a creaky old hospital bed. The smell was intense- the odour of stale blood and sweat was overwhelming. The sounds were disturbing too and he put his hands over his ears to stop it for a moment. When his eyesight fully returned and he hastily blinked to make sure that it wasn't a dream, he realised he was in some sort of makeshift hospital and was feverous, his muscles aching and with no idea why he was there. He had little energy to sit up and take in what was happening and he could barely comprehend what was going on. Other men lay beside him and he could see that they were clearly soldiers who had been in some kind of battle. He thought for a moment. Where were his friends and how did he get here?

Ian gulped and concluded he'd somehow ended up in the past. It wasn't too hard to recognise that the uniforms were reminiscent of World War I. It occurred to him at first that he could be dreaming; that the images before his eyes were no more than illusions, after all he had been standing at the graves of the fallen soldiers in 2017 and then he was suddenly in a hospital where the wounded men once had been a hundred years earlier. His scientific mind told him that there was a reasonable explanation, but as he watched in horror, a man in the bed beside him, fell, coughing up blood, his face filled with agonising expression and dying before his very eyes- could he really still be dreaming? He doubted it. His mind had never conjured up such horrific and realistic images before, images that haunted men like his father for the rest of their lives.

As he gasped, open mouthed and breathless, desperately trying to speak and to find out what was happening, he realised he couldn't get any words out except a feverous mumble and a squeak that only a mouse would understand. Suddenly he was mopped on the brow by a young soldier, not much more than a boy. He wondered why the boy was tending to him, he too was injured after all- his arm rested in a tight sling and his face a mass of cuts and bruises. Ian tried to speak again but to no avail. The boy stopped him.

"Try not to speak, Wilfred," he said softly. "You must rest."

Ian wondered why the boy was calling him Wilfred.

"It's me, Latimer, Timothy Latimer," the small framed boy said.

Ian didn't recognise the name and couldn't understand how the boy knew him either, and what was with the name Wilfred? Just how long had he been there at the hospital? He faded out of consciousness moments later.

…

Wilfred, the real Wilfred, not the false one named Ian, was lying in 2017 beside the war graves and was shadowed by the standing bodies of the Doctor, Barbara and Susan. This is the tale of Wilfred Owen a hundred years into his future lying unconscious on the graves of the fallen.

Wilfred's eyes flickered slowly before waking to see three strangers standing over him. Whilst Barbara helped him to his feet, the Doctor drew upon young Wilfred like a vulture.

"My boy, my boy, you are not Chesterton!" he said to him.

Wilfred gulped and rubbed his eyes, scanning the area and staring at the graves that faced him with uniformity. Barbara had told the Doctor to be quiet as she and Susan tended to the delusional Wilfred. For once the Doctor listened and agreed.

"But where's Ian?" Susan asked Barbara.

Barbara's eyes showed a hint of worry. "I'm not certain Susan," she replied. "It was strange. One moment we were staring at an unconscious Ian, then suddenly an unconscious soldier in his place."

Wilfred gripped Susan's hand, the mud on his skin now transferred to hers, and he began to speak slowly but surely. "Where am I?"

"You're in 2017, in France," Barbara told him softly.

Susan then explained what had happened, how Ian had been there moments earlier, how he had faded away and Wilfred had appeared in his place. Wilfred was at first sceptical of the strangers and of what he was being told. His face was young with eyes holding an expression of both fear and wonder. He was in a new time and a new place, but he was fascinated, curious and scared. The Doctor asked him his name and patted him on the shoulder as if checking to see if he was real.

"Wilfred Owen," the man replied.

Barbara could hardly contain herself at the news as a sense of both excitement and sadness swept over her as she came face to face with the great World War I poet. She tried to remain cool, but she felt like she had just met John Lennon or Ringo Starr and had an urge to shake his hand and congratulate him on how brilliant he was.

"You're Wilfred Owen?" she said, not quite believing it.

He nodded and shook his head. "I was unwell. I fell through a hole into a cellar. I was concussed, suffering with fever. Am I imagining you, hallucinating in a delusional state?"

"If only that were so my dear boy," said the Doctor.

Barbara and Susan helped Wilfred to his feet and led him to a nearby bench so he could rest. Barbara had never seen the face of the poet whose verse she so admired so she was interested to take in everything about him. She looked at his young face and had almost forgotten that he was only in his twenties and for a moment was struck by the horror of the knowledge that his death was to occur in 1918 during the war. Being a time traveller certainly wasn't easy.

…

When Ian awoke a second time, his eyes began filling in the images of the blur in front of him. He shook his head in disbelief and suddenly remembered where he was- knowing finally that it wasn't a dream. The young man Timothy Latimer was still beside him but he looked no older than some of Ian's pupils but he possessed an obvious maturity that so many of the Coal Hill school lads lacked. Ian sat up suddenly, the smell in the room was terrible and he wanted to escape. He tried to get up but Latimer stopped him gently.

"Wilfred you're sick, you must rest," he said. His voice was soft and calming.

"I need to find my friends," Ian whispered.

"I'm afraid many have died, Wilfred," Timothy said. "We've all lost friends."

Ian wondered why he still kept calling him Wilfred. How did he know Ian? There were still no answers.

"How do you know me?" Ian asked shakily.

Timothy let out a smile. "I know you only by reputation, Wilfred. You are popular and I hear you are gifted with words, always seen writing in that notebook of yours. I offered immediately to help you recover when I heard you were ill."

"Why do you call me Wilfred?"

Timothy looked confused at the question. "That's your name isn't it, Wilfred Owen?"

Ian didn't reply as the name Wilfred Owen resounded in his mind. Wilfred Owen was the poet, the man of the trenches that he had learnt about in school and Latimer thought he was _him_? For a moment in his delusional state he started to question who he really was and for one brief moment considered that he _was_ Wilfred Owen and that the man he thought of as Ian Chesterton wasn't real, was a story, a character, and Barbara nothing but an illusion. Had he ever even travelled in the TARDIS at all or was that simply fiction he'd created?

"What about Ian Chesterton?" he asked softly hoping to find out if he was going mad.

Timothy's face once again portrayed confusion. "I'm not sure I know a man of this name, is he in your infantry?"

Ian shook his head in disagreement. He felt something in his pocket and reached into it, pulling out a black and green striped tie- his Coal Hill school tie. He was holding the tie from his real life in 1963 Shoreditch. That meant that this was an illusion and he'd been somehow transported to the wrong time. He wondered if the Doctor knew what was happening.

He had been standing in the future looking at the graves of the fallen and somehow he'd taken Wilfred's place or they'd been swapped- he didn't know but it had to be something the Doctor could explain if only he could contact him. And then he felt sick, his memory of Wilfred Owen's death creeping into his mind. What if he was stuck there and forced to live Wilfred's final days? Was an alien being to blame, a trickster trading him in order to save someone more important? If Ian was to die then they would know him be a different man, a normal man of no talents such as Wilfred possessed and meanwhile Wilfred would be missing in action, his whereabouts never known, history altered forever but he'd be alive.

…

The Doctor was examining the graves again, bent over looking carefully at the names, as if saying hello to each and every one as he passed them. Barbara felt the tears in her eyes as Wilfred stared too at the sea of war graves stretching to the distance. There was no way to shield him from the truth.

"I have seen hell," he said.

Susan put her arm around him as her grandfather stood still, his body motionless, his face staring at one grave in particular.

"What is it, Grandfather?" Susan asked. Barbara joined her and they approached the Doctor with reluctance at what he had found.

"This is most distressing," the Doctor said as he pointed to the grave.

Susan's voice trembled as she read it aloud. "Ian Chesterton, died in action, March 1918."

Barbara's face fell pale and her eyes filled with tears. "It can't...he can't."

"I'm afraid it is," the Doctor said sadly, looking around as if baffled by the events that were playing out.

"So Ian's dead?" Barbara whispered. "He's dead...died just now, but he's been lying here nearly a hundred years?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, shaking his head with sadness.

Barbara felt angry. "But who grieved him? No-one knew and no one grieved him for a hundred years?"

"Calm down my dear Barbara," said the Doctor tapping her on the shoulder in a comforting gesture. "Chesterton is very good at getting out of these situations remember?"

Barbara shook him away. "Good at getting out of it? Doctor, he's dead. He's been here for a hundred years. He dies in those trenches, we have proof. How can he get out of it?"

Wilfred sensed the desperation in Barbara's voice and he took her hand. "Who is this Ian Chesterton?"

She wasn't sure how to answer. "Our friend Ian."

"You see my boy," The Doctor said approaching Wilfred. "You were in the war in 1917. Ian was here with us and for some unexplained reason you've switched places."

Wilfred looked at the Doctor and sighed but he seemed to take the news well enough and seemed fascinated by the further explanation from the mad man with the wild white hair. It seemed that Wilfred had seen so much in his short life that nothing was too unbelievable for him to imagine. Wilfred admired the man instantly, saw something in him that he liked and he looked fondly at the women too- their compassion was comforting to him in such a scary and unfamiliar environment.

"I've been moved from my timeline," Wilfred said. "I'm here in the year 2017, safe and sound and your friend has been moved to my time where he is amidst terror and death?"

His eyes fell upon Barbara who was wiping away a tear. Sometimes knowing the future was too hard to bear.

"I have taken his place and now your friend may die," he said sadly as if it were somehow his own fault.

…

Later that day, Ian nervously approached a band of soldiers as they squatted in a muddy dirty trench. He could never have imagined the sheer horror until he saw the Great War in front of him. Timothy led him into the depths of a trench where the sound of the shell fire was so deafening that he was convinced he might lose his hearing altogether. He sat still on the ground awaiting orders, knowing he had no military experience as a soldier in combat- his RAF national service days certainly were no used to him. His gun rested beside him and he clutched it not wanting to let it go. A soldier leaned over handed him a cigarette. He certainly didn't refuse and lit it whilst his muddy hands trembled. He noticed the man was looking at him curiously.

"I haven't seen you before," he said.

Ian wondered how to respond as Latimer was in earshot and had already heard him utter confused words.

"I'm new," he let out quietly, trying to say as little as possible.

The soldier shook his hand. "Well hello newbie, I'm Jenkins."

Ian nodded in gratitude at the man's friendliness and then watched as he stroked a photograph of a woman.

"Your wife?" Ian commented.

The man nodded. "Edith," he said. "Isn't she beautiful?"

Ian nodded in agreement and looked around at the broken faces of the soldiers. He felt a guilt surge in him, knowing that he could not personally save a single one of them, how could he when he'd been forbidden from interfering with history and didn't even know why he was there?

Latimer was beside him again and Ian noticed he held a fob watch in his trembling fingers. Ian laughed slightly as it reminded him of the way the Doctor too would fiddle with his own watch fob, which elegantly matched his Edwardian dress. Latimer sometimes seemed like the Doctor, a face out of time, a man out of place. Timothy was continuously staring at the watch and as Ian looked on he could see that the watch face was broken, that time had stopped still, frozen forever at three o'clock.

"My lucky charm," Timothy said, noticing Ian looking at the watch.

Ian laughed quietly. "I know a man with a watch similar to that."

"A doctor gave me this," he remarked. "A wonderful man."

Ian found his answer a bit of a strange coincidence. "A doctor you say? Well that is funny. The man I also know is a doctor."

Timothy looked at him, a smile curving on his lips. "I doubt they're the same man."

"No, you're probably right."

"So what's your lucky charm then?" Timothy asked him a moment later, shaking Ian from his thoughts.

He wondered what to answer and thought about it for a second before saying the one thing that came into his mind. "Barbara." As soon as he had said it he noticed the whole group of soldiers had gathered around him and were laughing.

"Your lucky charm is a woman?" Hutchinson asked.

Ian suddenly felt rather stupid, but the statement was true in many ways. He certainly felt lucky when Barbara was around and unlucky when she wasn't.

"Your wife?" the soldier with the photograph asked.

Ian blushed for a moment. "No."

"One that got away?" asked Latimer curiously.

"A dear friend of mine, a colleague," he told them, and they all nodded perhaps a little disappointed that he had nothing to tell them that denoted any sense of gossip or humour. Ian was a little taken back as Latimer looked at him with a sense of sudden suspicion in his eyes. He was staring now, his eyes watching him with intent and deep interest and they seemed familiar eyes- it frightened him.

"Are you alright, Latimer?" Ian asked.

Timothy looked away suddenly. "I thought I heard something."

"We are in a war you know?" said one of the soldiers. "You're away with the fairies you are, Latimer."

...

A while later when the other soldiers had moved on, Ian was alone with Latimer and once again the boy was staring at him but his eyes seemed to gaze right through him like a ghost. Timothy was different somehow, mystical even, holding the watch like it was calling to him and telling him things, perhaps things from the future.

"What is it, Latimer?" Ian asked.

"You're not Wilfred Owen are you?"

Ian sighed and shook his head. "No, I'm not. My name is Ian Chesterton."

"The name you mentioned in the hospital?"

"Yes."

"You're a traveller in time?" he asked suddenly. The shock hit Ian like a thunder bolt. How could this young man know so much when he didn't know all the facts himself? Timothy was bizarre, he reminded Ian of Susan in that way sharing that unearthly quality as well as the young features so marked by experiences beyond their short years of existence.

Ian stammered. "Yes, I'm here by accident, but how could you know that, how do you know any of this?"

Timothy looked around making sure that they were the only people in earshot, "Sometimes I see things, hear things that I'm not supposed to. I have seen the future and what is to be."

"Because of the watch?" Ian queried.

"Partly," he said. "Partly because I've met a time traveller before."

"Then we have even more in common." Ian couldn't quite believe what he was hearing and ran his fingers through his hair.

"A junkyard," Latimer said. "I can see skulls lined in a cave and a mutant in a shell."

Ian shuddered. How did Timothy possess such powers? Did he know the Doctor somehow, could he foresee everything that was to be?

"How do you know these things?"

"The watch. I saw it all long ago. I saw the images of many men after me, saw many of their experiences. I also saw you in those visions."

"And that's why you helped me in the hospital?"

"I saw you in a time beyond mine and I knew you were not the real Wilfred Owen. I came here to ask where the real Wilfred is. The watch is dead now, it can't show me."

"I don't know, I assume he is where I was before I landed here, somewhere in France in 2017, honouring the fallen in a cemetery. He could be with Barbara, Susan and the Doctor."

Timothy's eyes widened in surprise. "The Doctor, a man who travels in a blue box?"

"Yes. Did you see this in a vision, Timothy?"

"No. I met him."

Ian was about to reply when the sound of gun fire rung around them. He narrowed his eyes as fire and dust consumed his vision and he coughed and wheezed, grabbing his gun and holding it to his chest in terror. He saw Latimer running away, calling back to him. "Chesterton! This way!"

But Ian couldn't see him and his eyes were filled with dust. He was disorientated but managed to clamber to his feet, though he was lost completely.

…

The Doctor stared into the hazy grey silver swirling vortex that had swallowed Ian earlier that day and that had now returned.

"What is it?" Barbara asked in a state of entrancement at its power. "Is that what took Ian?"

Wilfred and Susan stood away from the vortex, apprehensive of its command. The Doctor stood close to the phenomenon with his mouth wide open, gaping intensely in fascination.

"This is a time portal," said the Doctor in a sense of glee as he clapped his hands together. "This is how this all started."

"You mean like a time doorway to the past?" asked Wilfred.

The Doctor nodded.

"And through that swirling door is 1917, the war, the death, and my comrades still fighting and dying?"

"I'm afraid so," Susan added, upset as she saw Wilfred stare at the vortex with a look of hatred.

His eyes looked away from it and he stared at the graves ahead of him instead for now there were living plants and beautiful flowers growing beside the dead he had not long ago fought beside. Barbara wondered what he was going to do as she watched him pacing back and forth.

Susan grabbed the Doctor's hand in sadness. "Grandfather isn't there a way of bringing Ian back but Wilfred remaining here?"

The Doctor put his hand on his granddaughter's shoulder, but she knew from his expression that it wasn't possible.

"If I don't return," Wilfred said. "Your friend may die. He doesn't belong there and I do."

They bowed their heads and Barbara couldn't bear it. She wanted Ian back so furiously but also felt terrible that Wilfred would have to return to the horrors of the war to make their reunion happen. She took Wilfred's hand in hers and resisted the urge to argue with the Doctor that it was all wrong to let Wilfred die when there was a chance they could find a way to save him. She learnt from her experience with the Aztecs that sometimes things couldn't change even if you attempted to do so.

"Wilfred, I just want to say that you will never be forgotten or your poetry," Barbara said but the Doctor was hushing her, certain she should not reveal too much about his fate.

"No, let her speak," Wilfred said. "You know my poetry?"

Barbara nodded. "Many will read your poetry and they will finally understand the horrors of war instead of the supposed glory."

His eyes filled up with tears at her words. He never imagined that his words could ever mean something, that they could be much more than mere scribbles in his dirty and torn notebook, stained by blood and soot. "Then I have to go back, I must write. Besides, you all existing here has told me that the world now has a future, one I sometimes did not think could happen. Thank you."

Susan buried her face on the Doctor's shoulder knowing there was nothing she could do. For all the wonders of the universe and the joy of travelling, there was always the horrors and pain to balance it out. Wilfred took a deep breath and smiled at his new friends as he stepped slowly into the portal. The sound was loud. There was a high pitched surge and finally the portal enveloped him until he had completely disappeared.

...

And Ian woke up. The Doctor, Barbara, and Susan were standing above him as he shielded his eyes from the purple grey haze beside him as it faded into oblivion. He wearily got to his feet and could see from his friend's downcast faces that something terrible had happened. They had met Wilfred and the war poet had returned to hell in order to save Ian. He had sacrificed freedom for the schoolteacher.

"Glad to have you back, Chesterton," the Doctor said with a pat on Ian's shoulder.

Ian nodded, appreciating the Doctor's words and he smiled as he saw the old man clutch his fob watch to check the time. The Doctor buried the watch back into his pocket and sighed. "Well we must be getting back to the TARDIS."

The Doctor turned away discreetly, averting his eyes from looking at the graves again. He didn't like to show much emotion outwardly but the others could tell that the horrors affected him just as much.

Barbara took Ian's hand and they followed Susan and the Doctor back to the TARDIS. Before Barbara and Ian went inside, they watched as the last fragments of the portal faded away forever and knew that the memory of Wilfred Owen never would.

"Goodbye Wilfred," Barbara said as they stepped inside the ship.

Ian pondered whether to ask the Doctor about Timothy Latimer and the mysterious fob watch, but decided against it, meddling with history was not something he cared to get involved with. Timothy had met the Doctor, that was clear, but the Doctor may not have met Timothy yet.

...

Ian walked slowly to the war memorial in London. He rested his walking stick and laid a wreath at the foot of the monument that stretched high as if trying to reach the heavens. Barbara stood beside him, her arm linked through her husband's and they shivered together in the cold November chill.

"One hundred years," she said as she fixed a poppy to his lapel.

"2017 finally came around again," Ian said softly as they took a moment to reflect on the past and how lucky they were.


End file.
